Should have gone to Sainsbury’s…

The children of BBC news presenter Mishal Husain were the target of racist abuse while on a supermarket shopping trip when a man told them to behave ‘like proper English children’.

Ms Husain’s three sons were accosted by the man at a branch of Waitrose near the family’s London home shortly before she flew out to Pakistan to report on the death of Osama Bin Laden.

British-born Ms Husain, whose parents are from Pakistan, is said to have called for the manager and asked for the man to be confronted following the incident last Sunday.

Some non-racists at home in ENGLAND…

Ms Husain is one of the fastest-rising stars of BBC News. Her authoritative presence has been particularly in evidence this week in the aftermath of the raid on Bin Laden’s lair in Abbottabad, from where she has given reports outside the fortress compound of the Al Qaeda leader.

The regular presenter of BBC1’s Sunday evening news revealed on Twitter how racism threatened to spoil a family shopping trip the weekend before her departure. Well if that’s all she has to worry about… flip help her when she gets to Pakistan…

She was with husband Meekal Hashmi and their sons Rafael, six, and twins Musa and Zaki, four.

Mr Hashmi, who also has family origins in Pakistan, posted details too.

He wrote: ‘My kids abused in Waitrose. Told off for not behaving like English children. Reminds me of life in Seventies. Sad how slowly things change.’

Lawyer Mr Hashmi added: ‘Wife shouted for manager and called for Racist to be confronted. He remained belligerently unremorseful. Waitrose handled it well.’Err… a lawyer couldn’t handle it?The Bin Laden coverage has taken Ms Husain to the town where her father was educated as a boy in Pakistan. Earlier this week she tweeted: ‘Never expected a story in Abbottabad: often passed through en route to mountains and it’s home to my father’s old school Burn Hall.’

In 2009, Ms Husain was named one of the UK’s most powerful Muslim women. She often writes about her faith and describes herself as a ‘liberal Muslim’.

******

What is missing from this tweet (of course) is the behaviour that the man was objecting to…

Funny that, eh?

Also, that hubby, immediately brands the man a racist, based on one word. With that yardstick, most gangsta-rappas would be racist… yes?

What gets up the nose of most people (of all colours) is when people do something wrong or unacceptable and then seek to blame, or defer to others.

It has been my experience that ‘rising stars’ just don’t like people telling them off.

She evidently has a slight grasp of English too… the man saying ‘behave like English children’ could be inclusive.

Unless she doesn’t think of them as English… In which case, who’s the racist now?

3 responses to “Should have gone to Sainsbury’s…”

We have it arse about face in this country we really, really do. You may be black, white, asian, latino etc; skin color is totally irrelevant; but if you are resident (long-term) born, and brought up in a country you are that nationality.

What I strongly suspect is (having been in supermarkets and seen behaviour of kids/teenagers/supposedly grown men of an ethnic persuasion):
1) Loud / shouting / swearing.
2) Standing right next to someone speaking at a shouting-volume.
3) Pushing past people / not apologising when you bump into them.

All three are behaviours I see exhibited by ethnic minorities in even the supposedly ‘high-price’ supermarkets (meaning if you can afford to shop there you should have a decent job and a respectable level of education, so stupidity / lack of knowledge is no excuse).

Is it because they’re black/white/asian etc? No; it’s because nobody has told them that there are social norms to adhere to in this country and nod adhering to them will earn other people’s censure (particularly the older generation’s) / reproach.

You don’t have to adhere to them of course, but there is the above consequence, and perhaps one might even say it’s impolite to walk into someone’s front garden proverbially speaking and start pissing on the roses.

We are expected to conform to the social norms and laws of whatever country we travel to (i.e. restrictions on drinking/dress etc). I fail to see why the reverse does not apply! Oh that’s right, we’ve had 12 years of Labour sodomizing the morals and fabric of our society to keep their seats; specifically granting victim status to anyone of a different ethnicity or skin color.

Speaking as someone with (admittedly a small amount) of ethnic diversity in my own genes (so frankly anyone who think’s i’m a racist can fuck right off), it sickens me to see people behave that way.